BookBlast review of Dear Dickhead by literary punk feminist, Virginie Despentes, translated by Frank Wynne
Dear Dickehad is a glorious, scorching, epistolary fictional prose rant, translated into fluid, feisty prose by Frank Wynne. Despentes excels at vociferating, vituperating and reviling the complexities of our modern-day society that is deeply impacted by celebrity culture, misogyny, #MeToo and harassment on social media, the culture wars, social justice, patriarchy and capitalism, class traitors, interpersonal relationships, addiction and Narcotics Anonymous, the fallout from COVID . . .
It all begins with an insulting Instagram post. Oscar, a working-class writer whose spotlight is dimming fast, attacks Rebecca, a cult feminist actress in her fifties whose sex-bomb attraction has deteriorated to the point of her looking like “a wrinkled toad” in his view. He asserts that not only is she old, but also “husky, slovenly, faintly repulsive, and a filthy loud-mouthed persona.”
Rebecca’s response is scathing: “Dear Dickhead, I read the piece you posted on Insta. You’re like a pigeon shitting on my shoulder as you flap past. It’s shitty and unpleasant. Waah, waah, waah, I’m a pissy little pantywaist, no one loves me so I whimper like a chihuahua in the hope someone will notice me . . . I hope your kids die under the wheels of a truck and you have to watch them die without being able to do anything, that their eyes pop out of their sockets . . .”
An antagonistic exchange of letters ensues, which escalates when Oscar’s former press officer, Zoé Katana, who runs a feminist blog with a huge following, accuses him of harassment.
A central theme in Dear Dickehad is Cancel Culture. Is public shaming productive or destructive? Is it a genuine force for justice, or an automatic, unconscious knee-jerk reaction? Do we see people as individuals or as the mouthpieces for ideological positions, more often than not consumed by anger? Both Oscar and Rebecca are diametrically opposed, and suffer from the consequences of their polarizing online confrontation. Its personal and psychological impact comes clear.
Dear Dickhead is, arguably, a follow up to King-Kong Theory, Despentes’ autobiography and feminist manifesto based on her experiences when working as a moderator for Minitel, France’s forerunner to the World Wide Web, when she monitored a message board and had to disconnect racists, anti-semites, paedophiles and sex workers who were being offensive to get attention or make money.
Dear Dickehad is the first novel to be published after the monumental success of the Vernon Subutex trilogy which gives us a panorama of contemporary France, exposing the harsh economic, social and political realities of our time. Hundreds of thousands of copies were sold and it was adapted into a series by Canal+. Once again, her characters are complex and morally ambiguous: Oscar is neither wholly villainous nor innocent, and Rebecca’s activism, while well-intentioned, has its own contradictions.
For Despentes to turn her all-seeing eye to the dark side of celebrity and cultural capitalism is welcome, even if no clear resolution is provided (such ambiguity reflects real-life complexity). Although the novel packs a punch and is full of vitality and dark humour, the focus on ideas is such that the raw emotionality and tension that are hallmarks of Despentes books dissipate. Dear Dickhead left me thinking long after I put it down, its ideas and dark humour lingering in my mind.
France today is riven by social division and antagonism, worn out by lockdowns, protest in the streets and conflagration on social media, intractable debates and political uncertainty. Virginie Despentes asks difficult questions and shows the messy realities of living in a hyperconnected, hyperjudgmental society without reducing complex issues to easy answers.
The copyright to all the content of this site is held by the individual authors and creators. All rights reserved. Enquiries: please use the contact form
